


Lt. Illyan in Distress

by sigaloenta



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen, Pastiche, Poetry, Sappho - Freeform, Time Period: Reign of Ezar Vorbarra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 10:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigaloenta/pseuds/sigaloenta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Like a country girl 'just a little pregnant'...</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lt. Illyan in Distress

**Author's Note:**

> This was started during the Vorkosigan Impromptu poetry battle in January, but just now finished.
> 
> Meter: sapphic strophe

Sir: in your footsteps I was ever mindful  
still to hold my post free from all attachment.  
Agents are not men, never granted conscience.  
I know my duty.

Yet I crackle, yet with a plasma fire I  
burn, paralysis from a nerve disruptor  
seizes skin; my ears rumble unrelenting;  
strobe-flashes blind me.

All neutrality dissipates. The knowledge  
that I might --no -- am touched is all-consuming.  
Ah, forgive me, Captain, come now to aid me,  
just as you once did

when, indignant, I let my outrage creep out.  
You descended down from our masters' council,  
gently chastising with a father's sternness:  
"What is it, Simon?

What's the grief that now has you all a-flutter?  
What injustice now makes you shy your orders?  
Never fear. It will always be my  
part to remind you.

Like a country girl 'just a little pregnant',  
it seems insignificant, a private  
thought whose objectivity's almost unim-  
paired. But the baby

grows. No grudge, no scruple will find a father;  
Lords take vengeance or they deny and leave you  
unprotected, cold with imperial ire to  
freeze on the scaffold.

But if you smart now, soon their necks will feel it;  
If they scorn you, soon they will come a-begging.  
Vor may intrigue, duel: let them kill each other.  
Your duty 's memory."

I remember, sir. Be that voice as well, now!  
Keep me sane by holding me to dispassion.  
Keep me to my task, and through all the dangers  
pilot my oath true.

**Author's Note:**

> With sincere sincere apologies to Sappho for this highly inappropriate mash-up _cum_ rewrite of Poem 1 and 37.


End file.
